November 13-17 (2 hours)

Monday (2 hours)

Today was the day of my collaborative planning unit on Digital Citizenship. I collaborated with another teacher in my building who has a self-contained small group. This was a challenging lesson because of the fear of the unknown. While I have worked with SPED kids in the past I had never worked with students in small groups. The first thing I found out while collaborating with my fellow teacher was that it was important that I kept them engaged, kept my talking to a minimum, and got right to the point.

The unit actually wen very well. The students were one task, I to the role of the facilitator and allowed some freedom at the beginning of every lesson. Moving forward as I create more modules, specifically for my own classroom, I want to make sure that i'm being purposeful with my time instruction so that I don't waste time or the students attention.

***unable to take pictures of the students***

November 6-10 (11 hours)

Monday (4 hours)

Today was a relatively slow day in the library, however, it was an exciting day!!! We did not have many students to the library, however, my media specialist got a clerk!!!!! For the past four year my media specialist has had to spend most of her time at circulation and was unable to complete many of her other duties. But on Monday, our school hired a part-time clerk, and for half of her time she is in the library. It was great to see her breathe a sigh of relief. With some of that free time she created a activity to help reward students who are doing well in class. She purchased a puzzle  full of tiny squares. Students who are doing well will be sent to the library and given a small group of colored squares to place on the puzzle. As the students are given the squares they place them on the map the picture will appear. Students will not be told what the picture is, but will simply have to keep coming in and adding to the poster to see the picture. It's a very simple thing but the students love it. I asked he to tell me what it was but she wouldn't even tell me.

 

Tuesday (2 hours)

This morning was my day of teaching my face-to-face development. I have taught in front of my peers before but it felt different speaking in front of teachers I did not know and were not comfortable with. However, it went very well, and the questionaries proved it. I believe that the time that was taken to assess the school and actually find a actually need for the school kept the interest of the teachers. The goal of the development was have teachers increase the percent of their students assessment that involve technology and most were eager to try it. Some believed that the tool would be best used as a way to upload PowerPoints and other presentations on e-class for students to read, and while that was not the purpose of the staff development, i'm just encouraged that they are going to use it.

(Did not think to get my mentor or placement media specialist to take pictures)


Wednesday and Thursday (3 hours)
The weeding continues!!! There has not been a lot of teachers bringing classes to the library lately. I believe the reason is the Local Common Assessment that are coming up soon. Because of this down time I was able to get some more weeding done in the autobiography section of the library. Once again I was confused over the amount of books in perfect condition that were also over 25 years of age and had almost never been checked out during its time in circulation. In certain areas of the autobiographies the shelves are starting to look quite bare. However, my media specialist informed me that she would rather have only the books that students are reading, then to have books just to have books. It gives a false sense of the book collection in the library.

Friday (2 hours)

Today was my last official day of practicum!!! I throughly enjoyed my time in the library and have offered to continue helping my media specialist when time is available (i'm determined to help her complete the weeding process and purchase of new books for our school). Today I got a glimpse of how important communication is, as I tried to aid my instructional technologist and media specialist understand some last minute changes that had been done to testing, In our school our LSTC ensures that all paper test are scanned, and our media specialist assigns and blocks off computers for ESOL and SPED teachers who have to test. Every have been set for next week until a Pep Rally and 8th grade field trip prompted teachers to convince administration to move the test back. One thing that I have seen over the course of the semester is that when individuals do not understand the full job title on LSTC's and Media Specialist they are under valued and things within the school break down. I believe that it may be a good idea in future years to have a breakdown of each position in the school so that everyone understands and respects each person.

(Example of computer labs being blocked off for testing)

 (Example of computer labs being blocked off for testing)

After the figuring out the testing issue, we continued to bind the newer books in the library in preparation for them being out into circulation soon. Along with stacking a list of books that are to be put up for approval by the media committee.

September 30 - November 3 (15 hours)

Monday (2 hours)
Weeeeeeeeeding!!!!! It has become my favorite thing to do in Library and my media specialist thinks i's crazy for it. However, today I started working on the autobiography section of the library. The things that I was looking for while weeding where 2 fold. For one, I was looking for books that were older then 2001. Not only were there books the least checked out books, but the autobiographies were mostly out of date. The second was multiples books on one person. There is no need to have five different books on "Jessie Jackson" or "Neil Armstrong".  All it does is take up space for other books that studnets may be interested in.


Wednesday (6 hours)
Tech time!!! Today I spent time at Simonton Elementary with their media specialist. Today I got a good look at one of the new programs that they have within the library which is there "Lego Club". It's actually more of a Lego/STEM club in my opinion. The students have to build robots and use coding to make their robots complete task. It is an awesome club that are showing students the different career that are available to them such as; robotics, engineering, and computer programming. As always I enjoy going to this placement as it shows me the different ways in which media specialist and library spaces can be used.

Thursday (5 hours)

Today I went to my Norcross High School placement and saw the other side of the job, the administration and equipment side. My county has spent upwards of 10 million dollars on new technology upgrade through the 130+ schools in the county. Among them were new computers!!!!! They started with high schools and on this day it was Norcross' turn to receive them. Period after period teachers brought in there old computers, were given there new computers, and were shown how to recover their files from there old computers. As the instructional technologist stated "it's not the funnest day of the year for me, but it's needed, and the teachers are excited.

Friday (2 hours)

The weeding continues!!!! Today was a short day for me in the library, so I got right back to the weeding. I noticed that a lot of books look brand new but had been there since 2001 or older. As I kept coming across these types of books I started to wondering what the reason behind buying these particular books where. These autobiographies were neither part of any curriculum or interest to the students.

October 23-27 (13 hours)

Monday (3 hours)

Title One is no joke. Today I got my first look at Title One inventory. The media specialist and instructional technologist at my school work together to ensure that all of the items that have been bought with Title One money are in order for the upcoming audits. This is a long process that will take a few weeks.

Wednesday & Thursday (8 hours)

The county is going to a new system of cataloging media items. Therefore all of the items have to be peeled of their old item stickers and the new ones have to be put on. There wasn’t really a reason given for the new system, was just simply told that is was to be done

                      Friday (2 hours)

Was a slower day, weren’t many student who came in, and a Break was taken from all of the res ticketing and Title One materials. This became a great time to work on “book protecting”. Every time the school gets a new batch of books the media specialist takes her time to take protect the books by putting thick clear tape over the covers in hopes of preserving them. The reason being is that these books tend to take a beating because students love new books, especially the graphic novels.

October 16-20 (9 hours)

Monday (2 hours)

The library was relatively slow today as teachers are working in their last minute reviews in preparation for the district assessment. The time that I spent in the library was used reshelving.

Wednesday (no pictures can be taken during testing) (2 hours)

Today was a testing day. The library is used during this time for students taking their district assessments online or in small groups (ESOL or SPED). During this time the library is shutdown and is shutdown. During this time movement inside the library is to a minimum the media specialist is use more as a extra pair of eyes during testing.

Thursday (no pictures can be taken during testing) (3 hours)

As stated on Wednesday, Thursday was also a testing day. It concerns me that the library is closed and students don't have access to it, however, I understand the reasoning. Our school is currently understand construction, and two more stories of classrooms are being added. Therefore, space is tight and we do what we must

Friday (2 hours) 

As a result of testing there, was a lot more students coming in the library to renew their books and checking out new books. This caused for a a lot more shelving of books. I'm noticing that the same books are being checked out by the students. All of the books tend to be the new books that are full of pictures and color.

October 9-13 (15 hours)

Monday (6 hours)

Today was an easy day in the library as there were no students. However, there was still a lot to do, mostly checking books in and reshelving. A lot of the teachers brought their students in on Friday and there was just not enough time to check in all the books that were turned back in.

Wednesday (3 hours)

Today was more checking out of books. There was, however, a class that came to find books for a project. I got to help them find the books they need. While doing so I noticed that the students struggle with understanding their project. When asking them what kind of books they needed for their project they were unsure. I think that having a mini-lesson on library research would have helped them.

Friday (6 hours)

Today I spent some time at Norcross High School with the schools Instructional Technologist also known as the LSTC (Local School Technology Coordinator). I noticed the differences in job descriptions based on the school. At this particular school, the LSTC get to help on a multitude of levels from; teacher training, students training, and specialty programs. This particular day was a slow one as the only thing that was getting working on was the trainings website. This did give me a lot of time to talk with the LSTC, his insight on the field and the jobs available in this county have me even more excited than I already am. One of the things I did observe however, was his semester trainings. Every year he comes out with a series of trainings over a number of topics that usually have a theme behind it.

October 2-6 (7 Hours)

Monday (2 hours)

 Monday was a slower day. There were not that many classes in the library. This gave us time to work on work the collection. The library had recently purchased a large group of books. There books needed to be added to our database and barcoded before they could be put out on the shelves.

Wednesday (2 hours)

Wednesday picked up a little bit more, as there were a lot more classes coming in. So many that during the time that I was there only things that got accomplished was checking in and out books. I am noticing that the formula of having students pay a dollar to check out books and having to pay another dollar to turn them in (when owing fines or having lost books) is working. Students are paying the money or finding the books.

Thursday (2 hours)

Today a sixth grade teacher brought her class into the library for the first time. Students were informed on how book checkouts worked, what kinds of books were available in the library, and what else they could do in the library outside of checking out books. After the classes were done students checkout out their first books of the school year. 

Friday (1 hour)

 

Friday was a training on how to properly create a space on eclass pages for cultivated resources for our students. As a county we use to use symbaloos, however, symbaloo noticed how much our county was using it in the schools and tried to charge for it. Our school declined and just recently found an alternative, so every grade level has a training on how to implement the new tool properly.